She had played with that thought before, and the roomer she had had in mind was Willy Cameron. But the knowledge that he knew the Cardews had somehow changed all that. She couldn't picture him going from this sordid house to the Cardew mansion, and worse still, returning to it afterwards. She saw him there, at the Cardews, surrounded by bowing flunkies--a picture of wealth gained from the movies--and by women who moved indolently, trailing through long vistas of ball room and conservatory in low gowns without sleeves, and draped with ropes of pearls. Women who smoked cigarettes after dinner and played bridge for money. She hated the Cardews. On her way to her room she paused at her mother's door. “Asleep yet, mother?” “No. Feel like I'm not going to sleep at all.” “Mother,” she said, with a desperate catch in her voice, “we've got to change things around here. It isn't fair to Dan, for one thing. We've got to get a girl to do the work. And to do that we'll have to rent a room.” She heard the thin figure twist impatiently. “I've never yet been reduced to taking roomers, and I'm not going to let the neighbors begin looking down on me now.” “Now, listen, mother--” “Go on away, Edie.” “But suppose we could get a young man, a gentleman, who would be out all but three evenings a week. I don't know, but Mr. Cameron at the store isn't satisfied where he is. He's got a dog, and they haven't any yard. We've got a yard.” “I won't be bothered with any dog,” said the querulous voice, from the darkness. With a gesture of despair the girl turned away. What was the use, anyhow? Let them go on, then, her mother and Dan. Only let them let her go on, too. She had tried her best to change herself, the house, the whole rotten mess. But they wouldn't let her. Her mood of disgust continued the next morning. When, at eleven o'clock, Louis Akers sauntered in for the first time in days, she looked at him somberly but without disdain. Lou or somebody else, what did it matter? So long as something took her for a little while away from the sordidness of home, its stale odors, its untidiness, its querulous inmates. “What's got into you lately, Edith?” he inquired, lowering his voice. “You used to be the best little pal ever. Now the other day, when I called up--” “Had the headache,” she said laconically. “Well?” “Want to play around this evening?” She hesitated. Then she remembered where Willy Cameron would be that night, and her face hardened. Had any one told Edith that she was beginning to care for the lame young man in the rear room, with his exaggerated chivalry toward women, his belief in home, and his sentimental whistling, she would have laughed. But he gave her something that the other men she knew robbed her of, a sort of self-respect. It was perhaps not so much that she cared for him, as that he enabled her to care more for herself. But he was going to dinner with Lily Cardew. “I might, depending on what you've got to offer.”